06 December 2013

New York City Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio (right) is bringing back William Bratton (left) as commissioner of the New York Police Department. Bratton first lead the NYPD from 1994 to 1996 under Rudy Giuliani. He returns to the NYPD after leading the police departments in Boston and Los Angeles, notes the New York Daily News.

Bratton inherits a department that is under extreme scrutiny for aggressive policing, brutality and fatal shootings, as well as "stop-and-frisk", a practice which has disproportionately targeted Black and Latino men, youth and LGBT youth who reside in the five boroughs.

Bratton has utilized stop-and-frisk "in every stop in his decorated career," notes CBS New York. De Blasio campaigned as a harsh critic of "stop-and-frisk."

While unveiling his choice of Bratton on Thursday, de Blasio insisted that the new commissioner was the right man to further the city’s public safety gains while improving police-community relations. He also downplayed statistics that show that the number of stops surged during Bratton’s tenure as head of the Los Angeles Police Department between 2002 and 2009.

"The overuse of stop-and-frisk, the unconstitutional use of stop-and-frisk, the targeting of young men of color regardless of whether they had done anything wrong, that’s going to end," said de Blasio, who takes office Jan 1. “We’re not going to proceed with a policy where hardworking, law-abiding young men of color are singled out.”

Bratton reiterated his support for stop-and-frisk on Thursday, but has likened it to chemotherapy, saying that it must be utilized in proper doses.

Of course. Whatever you say, boss ...

A federal judge ruled the NYPD's "stop-and-frisk" policy violated the United States Constitution in August 2013. The controversial practice violates the Fourth Amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, said United States District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling on November 22.

28 September 2013

Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller was heckled by small group of gay activists in New York City on Friday as she left the offices of the Ford Foundation. The disruption happened on the eve of Simpson Miller's address this morning to the opening session of the 68th United Nations General Assembly—where a larger protest is expected.

The group of seven protesters shouted, "Gay rights are human rights!" and "Portia, shame on you!" as Simpson Miller exited the building. Simpson Miller appeared unper-turbed, waving at the protesters and blowing kisses, but was later redirected by a security detail. A group called Jamaica Anti-Homophobia Stand was calling for an end to Jamaica’s anti-gay laws. It, along with other gay-rights lobbies, is planning to stage another protest on Saturday morning, when Simpson Miller is slated to address the UN General Assembly.

Simpson Miller's center left People's National Party won in a landslide election in December 2011—capturing 42 seats in the 63-seat legislature, leaving the incumbent center right Labour party with only 21 seats. Simpson Miller was sworn in for the second time as Jamaica’s prime minister in January 2012. Simpson Miller explicitly came out for gay rights during a televised debate in Decemeber 2011. The former opposition leader promised a conscience vote on whether Jamaica's laws criminalizing consensual male homosexual acts—"buggery laws"—should be repealed. Activists are angry because that has yet to happen.

11 September 2013

The headline of New York City's largest Spanish-language newspaper El Diario La Prensa NY says it all: Thirty-two-year-old Carlos Menchaca wins a historic Democratic primary to represent Brooklyn’s 38th District in the New York City Council. Menchaca is poised to become the first Mexican-American to be elected to the Council, as well as the first openly LGBT person to be elected in Brooklyn.

Menchaca won nearly 58 percent of the vote in the district that includes Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace, and Red Hook. Menchaca easily won over incumbent Councilwman Sara González, who has held the office for eleven years. Menchaca decided to challenge González in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, reported Paul Schindler at Gay City News.

Sandy hit Red Hook with devastating impact. Living in nearby Park Slope at the time, Menchaca recalled jumping on his bike after the storm cleared and heading over to the area, where blocks and blocks were submerged under water, homes and businesses were shuttered and evacuated, and large housing projects, where residents depend on elevators, were without power.

"Government was nowhere to be seen," Menchaca recalled. Notably absent, he has since argued, was González, a point he said residents made over and over to him in the days he spent volunteering in the recovery effort. When, early this year, he decided to challenge her, the theme of a councilmember missing in action and the contrasting image of himself as "a candidate who is visible and active" became central to his campaign.

Menchaca was raised in El Paso, Texas. For several years he was the LGBT and HIV/AIDS community liaison for Speaker Christine Quinn’s office. Before that he served five years in Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s office.

The general election is in November. The district overwhelmingly skews Democratic and Menchaca is heavily favored to win.

Three gay newcomers won their primaries yesterday for New York City Council: Menchaca, 25-year-old political wunderkind Ritchie Torres in the Bronx and R20 friend Corey Johnson in Manhattan. Three incumbents won their respective primaries: Queens Councilmen Danny Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer, as well as Councilwoman Rosie Mendez of Manhattan. That would be six gay or lesbian councilmembers out of 51 seats. Menchaca and Johnson—as well as Mel Wymore, who is transgender and did not win his primary to represent an Upper West Side district—were endorsed by the New York Times on August 31.

This is brilliant. A huge round of congratulations to all of the candidates.

While much of the nation's attention was focused on Bill de Blasio's impressive in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, there were a number of historic wins in the outer boroughs that deserve attention.

Twenty-five-year Ritchie Torres won his primary in the Bronx's District 15 and is likely to become the first openly LGBT elected official in that borough. Torres won with 36% of the vote in a 6-way race. The Bronx-born Puerto Rican had support from labor, political groups and his former boss, East Bronx councilman Jimmy Vacca, reported Paul Schindler in Gay City News.

For an out gay man of his age running in a borough he noted has seen “a wave of social conservatism,” Torres has made impressive strides. He has earned a blizzard of union endorsements — from the Central Labor Council, healthcare workers at SEIU 1999, buildings service workers at SEIU 32BJ, transit and sanitation workers, teamsters, and the United Federation of Teachers, as well as the Working Families Party.

He is also supported by State Senator Gustavo Rivera — a reformer who ousted Bronx legend Pedro Espada, recently sentenced to federal prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a non-profit he controlled — and Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., the scion of another Bronx dynasty who parts ways with his infamous father on gay rights issues.

Torres has worked for Councilman Vacca since he was 18-years-old. Very impressive.

Three openly gay candidates were among those vying for the Bronx District 15 city council race. That fact was described as a "remarkable" achievement by DNAInfo in June 2013.

Their only community center closed last year, gay-centric social spots are scarce and the streets can still feel unsafe for same-sex couples, some say. Not only has there yet to be an openly gay Bronx legislator, but it was a Bronx state senator, Ruben Diaz Sr., who cast the lone Democratic vote in that chamber against the state’s 2011 same-sex marriage law.

All of which makes the entry of three openly gay candidates — including the apparent frontrunner — into a single City Council race in the heart of the borough seem so remarkable to some. "That to me would be a huge victory," said Antonio Centeno Jr., former board chairman of the now-defunct Bronx Community Pride Center.

The general election is in November. The district overwhelmingly skews Democratic and Ritchie Torres is heavily favored to win.

Three gay newcomers won their primaries yesterday for New York City Council, including R20 friend Corey Johnson in Manhattan and Carlos Menchaca in Brooklyn. Three incumbents won their respective primaries: Queens Councilmen Danny Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer, as well as Councilwoman Rosie Mendez of Manhattan.

12 August 2013

A federal judge has ruled the New York City Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" policy violates the United States Constitution. The controversial practice violates the Fourth Amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, said United States District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin in a 195-page decision, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Scheindlin found ... "the city adopted a policy of indirect racial profiling by targeting racially defined groups for stops based on local crime suspect data. This has resulted in the disproportionate and discriminatory stopping of blacks and Hispanics in violation of the Equal Protection Clause."

The judge added that evidence showed that minorities are "indeed treated differently than whites."

Between 2004 and 2012, the police made approximately 4.4 million stops under the program, which Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have credited with helping drive down crime. More than 80% of those stopped were either black or Hispanic and about 90% of those weren't charged with a crime.

The widespread profiling of Black and Latino youth and men have become a cornerstone of the Bloomberg Administration, adds Reuters.

Police personnel felt or were aware of pressure to increase the number of stops when Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office in 2002 and brought in Raymond Kelly to be NYPD Commissioner, the judge wrote. ...

A 2012 New York Civil Liberties Union report showed a sharp, steady increase in police stops over the course of Bloomberg's three terms in office - to 685,724 in 2011 from 160,851 stops in 2003, with about half of the 2011 stops resulting in physical searches.

[Critics say] ... [t]ransgender people, for example, may be assumed to be presenting fake identification to officers because their gender identities and new names don't match their official documents. For the gender-nonconforming, that could mean getting a citation for disorderly conduct "because you didn't act the way you should act, according to your gender," or as police are expecting a man or woman to act in that situation.

There are few reliable statistics about how many LGBT people are stopped by police in New York City. But Andrea Ritchie, coordinator of Streetwise and Safe, said that at least a quarter of gay youth become homeless at some point in their lives, often due to family stresses. This puts many of them on the street, which raises the likelihood of unwanted police encounters. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, about 20 percent of all homeless youth in the U.S. are LGBT, even though LGBTs make up less than 10 percent of all young people.

Ritchie also cited a recent study in the New York Law School Law Review that found gay youth were twice as likely as straight people to report "negative sexual contact" with the city police over a six-month period. But for various reasons, Ritchie said, gay people on the whole are reluctant to file formal complaints.

Judge Scheindlin's "ruling came after a federal class action lawsuit was brought against the NYPD because of the practice, leading to a nine-week trial that ended on May 20," adds COLORLINES. The lawsuit was launched by Black and Latino plaintiffs who believed they were the victims of racial discrimination.

05 August 2013

The panelists on the latest episode of Real Time with Bill Maher debated stop and frisk, Trayvon Martin and racial profiling. Barney Frank—who recently retired after three decades in Congress and was the House's senior out member—noted that budget cuts fueled by conservative Republican agendas have reduced the number of police officers and social workers. Frank was criticized by fellow panelist Jay-Z after suggesting that people in low-income neighborhoods wanted "more" police officers.

"More jobs would be better than police," said the hip-hop icon to much applause. "I don’t want to scare America, but the real problem is there’s no middle class; the gap between the have’s and the have not’s is getting wider and wider. It’s going to be a problem that no amount of police can solve."

Jay-Z—who grew up in Brooklyn's Marcy Projects—also sparred with Frank over life in public housing. Watch AFTER THE JUMP ...

03 June 2013

New York City detectives have arrested five men—ranging in age from 16 to 21-years-old—who allegedly shouted anti-gay slurs at a young gay man as they beat him outside Brooklyn's Prospect Park. The alleged victim is 25-year-old Kevin Kiadii, a makeup artist and one of at least four young men who have sued former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash for sexual abuse, reports the New York Daily News and the New York Post.

Police arrested five men who they say screamed anti-gay slurs as they beat Kevin Kiadii, 25, outside Prospect Park in Brooklyn Wednesday night, sources said. ... Kiadii told police that he was on Empire Blvd. near Flatbush Ave. at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday when he spotted four drunken men carrying another man out of the park. When he offered the wobbly stranger his pineapple soda, the suspects pounced.

"When I offered (my soda) one of them started yelling, 'Get the f--- out of here you f---ing f----t! I’ll f--- you up.'" Kiadii said he sprayed his assailants with perfume. Kiadii ended up wrestling with his attackers as he tried to fight them off, receiving a bruised finger and some scratches.

Police were nearby and responded. The suspects each were charged with gang assault and aggravated harassment as a hate crime, adds CBS 2.

The brutal gay-bashing becomes only the latest in a troubling trend in the nation's largest city. So far this year, there have been at least 30 reported gay bias attacks in the New York City, "more than double for the same period last year." They are likely more incidents that have not been reported to authorities.

Kevin Kiadii is one of at least four men who have filed federal lawsuits charging that the 52-year-old Kevin Clash had sex with them when they were underage. Kiadii's lawsuit claims that Clash "trolled gay telephone chat-line rooms to meet and have sex with underage boys." Kiadii says that he was only 16-years-old when he and Clash had sex.

06 May 2013

New York City's popular HOT 97 DJ Mister Cee went on the air this morning to address his latest arrest for soliciting a male prostitute, which happened Thursday night in Brooklyn. The prostitute turned out to be an undercover police officer.

According to Cee, who was born Calvin Lebrun, before the arrest he was approached by an undercover female police officer when he pulled his car over in Brooklyn to make a phone call. The female offered up sex, which he denied, but Cee says he was the victim of a "sting operation." "They tried to turn it around and say the female officer was a male officer. It was a sting operation," he maintained, again refuting the gay rumors.

Things began getting a little heated when Darden casted doubt and said that Cee was using "code talk." "Let's say if I'm lying, that's my choice," Cee proposed, after a Hot 97 DJ began to play Aly-Us' "Follow Me," a '90s dance record often associated with the gay club community. "If I'm lying and I chose not to come out, that's my choice."

This is not the first time Mister Cee has been implicated with rentboys. The radio personality and producer was arrested for public lewdness in April 2011 after cops "caught him in a car receiving oral sex from another man." The deejay was also previously arrested for loitering for the purpose of prostitution.

"Cee admitted that he does regularly engage in soliciting female prostitutes and paying strippers for sex," added AllHipHop. "But reinforced that he does not seek out men or" transgender women.

Cee had his first major break in hip-hop as Big Daddy Kane’s deejay. He produced Notorious B.I.G.’s first album Ready to Die.

Mister Cee earned Power 105's "Donkey of the Day" this morning. "Come out the closet and stop trolling for trade on the streets like this is the 1970s," said Charlamagne Tha God. "This is 2013. All you need is a boyfriend and an apartment."

Good point. But would hip-hop welcome openly gay deejays, producers and artists?

This after the radio personality, disc jockey and producer was arrested Thursday night for soliciting a male prostitute, reports the New York Daily News.

Cee, 46, whose real name is Calvin LeBrun, didn’t know that the gigolo he approached at Madison St. and Broadway in Bushwick just before midnight on Thursday was really an undercover cop, the sources said. The music man — who emerged into the hip-hop world as Big Daddy Kane’s deejay and later produced Notorious B.I.G.’s first album, “Ready to Die” — was charged with patronizing a prostitute. He was waiting to be arraigned on Saturday.

Mister Cee was busted for public lewdness after cops caught him in a car receiving oral sex from another man. ... Cee and a male companion ... were in a car parked at Watts and West Sts. and "the defendants' behavior was open to public view,'' the criminal complaint said.

A police source said Cee was busted in lower Manhattan last Oct. 8 and Nov. 20, both times for loitering for the purpose of prostitution. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after the October arrest. Charges in the November case appear to have been dropped.

Cee plead guilty in the 2011 case.

Hot 97 Program Director Ebro Darden has defended Mister Cee on Twitter. "Preference is not the crime. Solicitation is the crime. I never want Mister Cee fired," Darden tweeted.

AllHipHop.com notes that station management—which initially disputed the 2011 case—is being hypocritical and offering Cee celebrity justice. "My thoughts: If Cee was a regular dude, he’d have lost his job."

22 April 2013

Last week we previewed the brilliant cover of SWERV's Spring 2013 issue. The "Ballroom Couture" editorial was lensed by celebrity and fashion photographer deluxe Mike Ruiz. The issue features the "legends and icons" of New York City's past, present and future ballroom community.

The launch party was held last Thursday at Splash NYC. The attendees included the Legendary Rayceen Pendavis—who is on the cover—the Legendary Leiomy Prodigy, SWERV Publisher Jamil Fletcher, Demarco Majors, Roxxy Evisu, No Shade's David Brandyn, fashion designer Marco Hall, DBQ Publisher David Bridgeforth and many others. Watch the red carpet fabulousity, one more look at cover and the behind-the-scenes video WHEN YOU JUMP ...